All Things to All People
by Valevida
Summary: The first rule when investigating a suspect, as Tonks had learned during her first year of training, was to never become personally involved with them. Well obviously, she had thought at the time, but now she seemed in real danger of breaking it.


Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Prologue: Psychological Evaluation

_When I was a first year, I remember asking a third year Ravenclaw with long brown hair whether I could borrow her quill. First she looked at her friends in that certain way older girls have, then looked back at me down her long straight nose. "How would I even go about getting it back, _shifter_? It's not like I'll be able to recognize you tomorrow."_

_I was really embarrassed, obviously, but I was also frightened. I'm the first Metamorphmagus to survive childhood in the last hundred years, since Jacques Dejardin kept on murdering them. Wonderful track record we Metamorphmagi have; we're either "vile, inhuman seducers" like Nimue (this according to my History of Magic _textbook_) or serial killers like Dejardin. We're thieves and transexuals and Merlin knows what else. We almost make werewolves look cuddly according to certain people who have, throughout my life, believed I needed to be lectured on my self-worth._

_Stupid little duffer that I was, I half believed them. I wondered who I was, and thought I was terribly special. To my credit, being able to change your self-image with a twitch of magic can throw you for a loop, and heap just a little more angst onto your typical adolescent identity crisis._

_It's funny how one summer can change your life, how a certain group of people can make you feel at home and whole even you're not sure just who you're going to be. There's something beautiful about being accepted, even if no one can really, truly know another person. A sort of grace about it, which a cynic would call wish fulfillment only because he's never experienced it. That acceptance, that grace shaped me in ways my ever-changing body never could. And when that was brutally taken from me—_

Nymphadora Tonks frowned slightly at the roll of parchment covered in her own dense script. She stretched her arms over her head and let out a long, loud sigh, earning her a glare from Dawlish, who sat at the other end of the briefing room's ridiculously huge conference table, supposedly supervising. Tonks reread what she had written again, suddenly feeling like this whole process was rather laughable. _What do they expect to do with this, I wonder? Plumb the depths of my soul and evaluate me based on all their years in the therapeutic field?_ She had to hold in a sudden burst of laughter at the image of a very ferocious-looking Moody demanding at wand-point, "But how does that make you _feel_?" She looked up at the board, where the question "Describe something you have struggled with and how it affects your life" was written beneath "Psychological Evaluation." She smiled widely and thought, _why don't I give them something worth analyzing?_

She Banished what she had already written while holding her wand in one hand, beginning to write with the other:

_We haven't quite decided what to do about our problem. Isadora the milkmaid believes we should follow our heart, to which we agreed, but then disagreed on what our heart was saying. Boom-Boom the dominatrix thinks we should kidnap the object of our desire and beat its head in, while Sister Angela truly believes we should mortify our aberrant lust. Winifred the librarian and Queen Morganna Le Fay both agree that we should give the matter a lot of thought before approaching…the beloved._

_Our heart yearns for him, crying out in passion, "Polly, oh king among parakeets!" But deep down we know that our love cannot survive in this world, because THEY are out to get us, with THEIR noisome tentacles and seven eyes always open! Polly isn't safe, THEY'LL try to use him to get to us. Tonight. Tonight we will take him to our flat and make sure THEY'LL never find him! But we mustn't let it interfere with our ability to restore justice to the Wizarding world, Polly wouldn't like that._

Perfect! How many evaluations combined split personalities, paranoid-schizophrenia, and bestiality? Tonks rolled up the parchment decisively and started whistling triumphantly, earning another glare from Dawlish as she handed the parchment in. She made her way over to Kingsley's cubicle, where the tall wizard was attaching an old photograph to the partition with an Adhesive spell. Before she could say, "Wotcher, Kingsley," however, he said rather absently "That didn't take long."

Not seeing any empty surface, Tonks sat in an empty corner before replying, "We both know those things are formalities anyway. So do you have an assignment for me yet?" Kingsley shoved the pile of files off his chair and sat down.

He reached for another file on his desk and handed it to her, saying, "I do. A bit of an information-gathering exercise." She opened the file and held up the photograph at the front of it, and froze. The man in the picture was about medium height, too thin, and had graying brown hair. The robes were perhaps shabbier than she remembered, but he was undoubtedly Professor Remus Lupin.

She looked up at Kingsley questioningly and asked, "You want me to investigate Lupin?"

"Tail him actually. Observe his routine, find out where he buys his potion stores, how often he sends a letter, that sort of thing. It's a pretty great opportunity, actually. Now that he can't hide behind Dumbledore's skirts we have a much better chance of tying him to Black, which will get us this much closer to catching the bastard." Tonks said nothing, but was furiously thinking of some way to get out of this. The last thing she wanted to do was have anything to do with Lupin, but if she turned down the assignment, Kingsley would ask her why, and _then_ what could she tell him? Besides, she'd only made Auror a month ago; she wasn't exactly in the position to pick and choose assginments.

Finally she said, "Lupin was one of Black's closest friends, and according to his statement at the time of Black's escape from Hogwarts Lupin believes he's innocent. There's no way he's not up to his neck in all of this. Isn't he, well, isn't he a bit too big a suspect for a first-year probationary Auror to handle?"

Kingsley raised an eyebrow and said, "So modest, Tonks? Well, when you're right you're right. You're not supposed to come into any contact with him at all. This assignment is little more than glorified grunt work. However, it's still not the sort of grunt work a probationary Auror usually does. Tonks, do you know how many Auror candidates get top marks in Concealment and Disguise?"

"I'm guessing not many."

"No one's gotten a higher score since they started the Qualifying Exams. That's part of the reason I volunteered to oversee your probationary year. You should have no problem keeping a low profile."

Tonks, however, pointed out an obvious flaw in his reasoning, "I nearly failed Stealth and Tracking."

Kingsley gave her a toothy smile and said, "What, you thought your training ended when you passed the QEs? Your assignment specs are in the file." Tonks smiled back at him. This wouldn't be so bad; she didn't have to talk to Lupin after all. Besides, wanting to avoid the man was an irrational impulse anyway. When she first met him, he'd seemed like a decent chap. _A decent chap who may be, no, probrably is, aiding and abetting a mass murderer_, she reminded herself.

Suddenly a roar of rage came from Dawlish's cubicle, sounding very much like "NYMPHADORA TONKS!" Tonks shot to her feet, gave a mock salute, and said brightly, "See you later, Kingsley," before promptly, prudently Disapparating.


End file.
